The boat cemetery (Cento)

The boat cemetery


Never shall I forget

The lengths they will go to      Women
on the way      Drawing lots             Children
of the same sea      Drawing lots

You brought this upon yourself
        The will of the waves

                The girl in the front row

      One red shoe

                        Little pieces of home

      The wounds you cannot see
God      An irrevocable decision     is not to blame

________________________________

The above lines, including the title of the cento, are a selection from the names of chapters in Dr. Pietro Bartolo's book Tears of Salt: A Doctor's Story. The final line comprises two chapter titles ("God is not to blame" and "An irrevocable decision") split in two.

Thought for the Day

Activism is what love looks like in public.

~ John Grauwiler

_________________________________

Quoted from “Response to ‘All the Dead Boys Look Like Me’ by John Grauwiler” in Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence (Beacon Press, 2017), page 155

John Grauwiler, Gays Against Guns Co-founder and Activist

The poem “All the Dead Boys Look Like Me” was written by Christopher Soto.

Losing My Mother (Poem)

Losing My Mother

It is 1:47 a.m. when the call comes,
shattering sleep the way waves
break on Florida's shell-stocked shores.

Even before my sister's voice thrusts
through the silence, I, a mother, too,
know to expect nothing but bad news.

How to navigate the steady storm
of tears, hear out the stuttered words,
one after another so slowly spoken

between the breaths of the one
delivering, the one receiving —
"She's gone." — and never again

to be that lonely child looking up
into her mama's eyes, seeking
forgiveness for love's clearly blind.

© 2018 Maureen E. Doallas

Also see my poem 'for Mama' in the comments section of this Tweetspeak Poetry post.

 

Thought for the Day

it’s possible
the eye knows
even where there should have been a lake
~ Rosmarie Waldron
___________________________

Quoted from Rosmarie Waldrop’s Poem “The Round World” (The excerpt appeared in a December 15, 2017, interview with the poet and translator in the Words Without Borders Daily.)

Rosmarie Waldrop, American Poet, Translator, and Publisher

Words Without Borders

New Artist Watch Feature at Escape Into Life

Yarrow Slaps, A Picture of Me

Acrylic on Wood Panel, 18" x 24", 2017

Copyright © Yarrow Slaps

PLEASE DO NOT COPY IMAGE

Today's Artist Watch at the online arts magazine Escape Into Life introduces Yarrow Slaps, a musician, curator, and painter who lives and works in San Francisco.

Inspired by Mission School artists, Yarrow takes his subjects from their sources. His portraits, which he has exhibited in both solo and group shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles, are imbued with a distinctive street aesthetic and reflect Yarrow's long exposure to many different kinds of urban lifestyles and perspectives. Yarrow has been an artist-in-residence at San Francisco's deYoung Museum and is the recipient of an individual artist grant from the city. He co-curates with Auguste Somers the artist collective SWIM. (Read a review of the 2017 group exhibition "Lil SWIM" at Art Enthusiast. Also see the review at Juxtapoz.)

Today's Artist Watch feature includes six images of Yarrow's paintings, an Artist Statement, and a brief biographical profile.

In Memorium

In Memorium

Nancy Louise Hindle Doallas

August 19, 1927 - January 11, 2018

Ft. Myers, Florida

May peace be with you, Mama.

~ 

You think this is just

another day in your life?

It’s not just another day.

It’s the one day

that is given to you today.

It’s given to you. Today.

It’s a gift.

~ Br. David Steindl-Rast

Thought for the Day

Sometimes the flaw in our character 

is the hole through which God enters.

~ Haroon Moghul

______________________________

Quoted from Haroon Moghul, How To Be a Muslim: An American Story (Beacon Press, 2017), page 64

Haroon Moghul, Pakistani-American Writer, Academic, Journalist, Television Commentator, Public Speaker; Fellow in Jewish-Muslim Relations, Shalom Hartman Institute of North America; Senior Fellow and Director of Development, Center for Global Policy

Haroon Moghul on Facebook and Twitter

Saturday Short

Today's Saturday Short is the trailer for Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film (2017) from director Sam Wainwright Douglas. The 74-minute documentary is about the conception and construction of a two-mile-long artwork by the interdisciplinary arts collective Postcommodity* between the borders of Mexico and the United States. The work comprises 28 ten-foot balloons, each bearing a pair of "open eyes", an indigenous cultural symbol, that float over the border wall dividing Douglas, Arizona, from Agua Prieta, Sonora. The balloons serve as "a metaphorical suture stitching together cultures that have inhabited these lands long before borders were drawn."

A screening of the film will take place on January 20 at 3:00 p.m. in the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. The presentation, co-sponsored by the National Museum of the American Indian, is free. A discussion with producer David Hartstein and artist Cristobal Martinez follows the screening.

* The collective includes artists Raven Chacon (Navajo), Cristobal Martinez (Mestizo), and Kade L. Twist (Cherokee), who have collaborated with Steven Yazzie and others to investigate through an indigenous lens public perceptions, beliefs, and actions and their effects on indigenous cultures.

Postcommodity on FaceBook